A Young Girl's Wooing eBook

If this were true, how infinitely deeper would have
been his impression if he could have seen the beautiful
girl, now smiling into his eyes, bowed in agony at
that sick-bed, while she acknowledged with stifled
sobs that the dying girl was better off—­far
happier than she who had to face almost the certainty
of lifelong disappointment. Poor Madge had not
told Graydon all her story. She would have died
rather than have her secret known on earth, but she
had not feared to breathe it to one on the threshold
of heaven.

CHAPTER XXVIII

DISPASSIONATE LOVERS

During the last moments of their drive Madge and Graydon
were comparatively silent. They were passing
dwellings, meeting strangers, and they could not,
with the readiness of natures less finely organized,
descend to commonplaces. Each had abundant food
for thought, while even Graydon now believed that
he so truly understood Madge, and had so much in common
with her, that words were no longer needed for companionship.

As they approached the piazza, they saw that Arnault
was still Miss Wildmere’s devoted attendant.
His presence meant hope for Madge, and Graydon was
slightly surprised at his own indifference. He
felt that the girl to whom he regarded himself as
bound belonged to a different world, a lower plane
of life than that of which he had been given a glimpse.
The best elements of his nature had been profoundly
moved, and brought to the surface, and he found them
alien to the pair on the piazza. He was even
self-reproachful that he saw with so little resentment
Stella’s present companionship.

“While I don’t like her course at all,”
he thought, “I must believe that she is acting
from the most self-sacrificing motives. What
troubles me most now is that I have a growing sense
of the narrowness of her nature.”

He had never come from her presence with his manhood
aroused to its depths. It was her beauty that
he dwelt upon; her piquant, alluring tones and gestures.
Madge was not an ill-natured critic of the girl who
threatened to destroy her future, but, by being simply
what she was, she made the other shrink and grow common
by contrast.

To Graydon such comparisons were odious indeed, and
he would not willingly permit them; but, in conformity
to mental laws and the force of circumstances, they
would present themselves. Each day had found
him in the society of the two girls, and even an hour
like one of those just passed compelled him to feel
the superiority of Madge. His best hope already
for Stella was that she would change when surrounded
by better influences—­that her faultless
taste in externals would eventually create repugnance
to modes of thought and action unsuitable in a higher
plane of life. He did not question his love for
her, but he felt this morning that it was a love which
was becoming disenchanted early, and into which the
elements of patience and tolerance might have to enter
largely. Should he marry her to-day he could
not, as Madge had said, and with the first glow of
affection, believe her perfect. He even sighed
as he thought of the future.